Wendia Machado 8/23/21 Wendia Machado 8/23/21

Hearts Series: Memoir of a Foreign Soul

The soul of a foreigner constitutes more than a state of being. It is a state of searching. This isn't a good-bye letter. This is a closure to a beautiful cycle. Yes, they surprisingly end, too. The artistic work, as everything else in life, seeks a finish line that is never there. The artist must learn how to draw such a finish line and move on to the next challenge. EmpowHer NY has been such a wonderful home, and I'm so grateful for all the brave women that I have met. It is magical to witness your peers' healing processes and, more often than ever, identify with them. Because I, too, am constantly healing. One doesn't only heal from their wounds, they also heal from their choices, and that isn't necessarily bad, it only means we embraced the good and bad that comes with the freedom of being ourselves.

To not belong can be terrifying, but it can also be liberating. Every situation we don't fit in is a page we have permission to turn. And, when we turn such a page, a brand new one takes place and suddenly, we are in charge of writing our story again. I remember being seven years old and seated at the table surrounded by talkative adults sharing their old-world truths. "You gotta be a doctor, young lady. Only doctors make good money", or "No, not at all, look at her, she is so good with words, she's gotta be a lawyer". I didn't know I was good with words, but I have always enjoyed seeing them on a piece of paper. Writing took me places I never thought I would've gone, like unexplored new worlds and facades of New York I didn't know exist. I have come to New York to write the story within the story: my own.

Those you love back home might never understand what it takes to thrive in a foreign land. Not lacking desire to do so, but for overload of care and concern. Every time I recall the day I saw my parents for the very last time before boarding to go abroad, I remember my mom's words to me. Unwillingly, she had imprinted on me several of her fears and concerns about my leaving. It took me an incredible amount of love to understand where she was coming from, it took me an even greater amount of love to convey both my respect for her and my will to take the driver seat of my own life.

A couple of years later, her and I recalled that time fondly. In every successful relationship, it takes time to adjust to each other's needs. Sometimes, it's about exiting the land you were born in. Other times, it's about embracing that same land even if you're not there anymore. My mother and I overstepped each other's lands many times, more than we wanted to admit but, sometimes the only way to learn a map is by navigating it.

In the end, every choice we have made and every chance we have taken, it all serves a greater purpose: to let go of this silly fear of navigating our own map. The things I have learned about myself weren't necessarily always pretty and stimulating, there were some ugly pieces to it but, when I figured it out the whole, I wasn't afraid anymore. To discover the entireness of who we are is to feed our soul deeply. There is no such thing as a soul that doesn't want to be discovered, seen. For every stage of this discovery, an opportunity to learn rises. For every foreign soul that ventures outside their cocoon, a new world is born.

Wendia Machado 7/26/21 Wendia Machado 7/26/21

Hearts Series: Memoir of a Foreign Heart

I once was told that home is where our heart is. As I grew up surrounded by family and the nuances of my own culture, I have always had the feeling that something was missing. That something was a void that, later on, I would fill with travels and the possibility of finding unknown places on Earth.

When a foreigner, who I would define here as someone in the search of a home that makes sense in their heart, travels abroad, they often know that the home they are looking for is an ongoing process that has been built inside them even before the journey itself. The search for what makes sense in life begins earlier, prematurely, in the willingness of embarking upon such endeavors.

We must explain some myths (first) to understand the heart of a foreigner. Such as, when one ventures in an overseas land, their love for their motherland is still there and, more often than ever, it will always be. What we are looking for is a different reality, not purely a different citizenship. The soul of a foreigner will always rest on the core of their homeland. They usually transport it with them, no matter where they go. It is an accent, their home cuisine and, sometimes, their heritage. No wonder why so many cultures make a home, and room, for their entire culture. It is like bringing a small portion of their country in the suitcase.

Sometimes, we love the house we were born in, but we have to change its structure to keep the house from falling over our heads.

I came overseas because my heart felt very foreign in the nest I was constituted in. However, I would learn later in life that my heart was foreign to the land I grew up in because I was simultaneously foreign to that land as well. Sometimes, we grow outside the nest that nurtured us to understand that the nest will always be there, whenever we feel like coming back. And that itself shifts the perspective of living abroad. It is usually a choice. And when we’re not the ones making that choice, life will make them for us, and we will be just along for the ride.

The foreigner, outside their homeland, chooses to relearn everything in a nest that is, not yet, familiar to them. Isn’t it beautiful when we learn that restart is more than a verb, it is a way of life?

The heart of a foreigner is always in a restless state because, deep down inside, their soul doesn't belong anywhere. The soul of a foreigner is constantly searching for something.

Wendia Machado 6/28/21 Wendia Machado 6/28/21

Hearts Series: Memoir Of A Foreign Mind

The year was 1989, the TV was on a 1964 Christmas special with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The foreign language hit her; she is enchanted with all the jazz. Later on, the movie on the TV is also about Christmas in a city filled with lights. Famous tall buildings and yellow cabs. Empire State of light. It is snowing lightly, and people are running through Times Square in heavy winter coats to buy last-minute holiday cards. In her hometown, there was no rush to buy holiday cards, nor the weather was so Nordic. She looked around and felt anywhere but home. She knew that, to become who she wanted to be, she would have to make a change. When she first moved to New York a couple of years ago, everything was exactly how she had expected it to be. The energy and the pace of the city that never sleeps got under her skin. She was in love, finally. For the first time in her life, she felt like she belonged. The foreign land has become home, whereas her actual homeland had always been foreign to her. The year now is 2021, away ahead in the future, neither she nor anyone would have imagined that a global pandemic would take place and that everybody, herself included, would have to rethink oldish concepts like home and purpose.

New York is a city of foreigners. The food, the dreams, and the languages. Everything came here from elsewhere to find home, to find shelter and acceptance. Many will say New York is tough, it really is. In the midst of a pandemic, it is tougher. She managed, however, to get through this crisis and to reassure meaning in the city that embraced her in the early years of her intrepid endeavor. She decided then to celebrate the passage of this hard year by acknowledging a few things she has accomplished ever since. The pandemic is, obviously, far from over, but her spirit is rejuvenated. As if she had just moved into the arms of the Big Apple. Sometimes it is not about finding a motive, it is about creating it.

When life happens, it becomes really easy for our daily routines to overlap the big picture. The reality might not look like you have pictured in the past, but that doesn't mean you didn't get there. It only means that "there" has changed, which isn't necessarily bad, it just means life is in constant motion. The girl in our story sometimes thinks she might give up and that thought, somehow, saddened her until she realized how far she has come. The things we wish come true also change, and the sooner we accept that, the greater life gets.

When I heard the expression "nature versus nurture" for the first time, I couldn't help but think that our foreign girl is me and that I am her. She represents all the metaphors of a foreigner's heart in their most meaningful journeys. Either to find new meaning or to fill a void, both foreign concepts to those who have chosen to take risks in life. Our foreign language is our home flag, and our accents aren't thick, they are simply strong. When we venture into a new language, we are also saying yes to a new adventure, in which we know we might not come out alive. At least, not as our old selves.

Wendia Machado 4/26/21 Wendia Machado 4/26/21

Heart Series: Ariel Henley - A Face for Picasso

In this month's issue of our beloved Heart Series, we interviewed Ariel Henley –the author of A Face for Picasso. A book that narrates the story of the author and her twin sister and their lives with Crouzon Syndrome. It is undeniably true that our appearance determines how we will navigate the world in life. From the day we are born, our experiences will be shaped in our social circles, career, relationships, etc. Inevitably, our appearance shapes who we are at first encounters. In the social media world, as we progressively build conversations around what “normal” means, we are also learning that “normal” is just an idea. It is a hypothetical idea that does nothing besides create gaps between people. However, we are here to build bridges between us, and Ariel has just built one of her own. For herself and the surrounding community.

"A Face for Picasso is about the story of my twin sister and I, growing up with Crouzon Syndrome, which is a condition where the bones in the head fuse prematurely. Nobody in my family had it, so it took a while for them to figure out what we had. At the age of eight months old, we started having surgeries in our head and face, and it changed what we looked like. I grew up never really having a clear understanding of it."

If we lived in a society where everybody had Crouzon Syndrome, the ones who lacked that condition would be considered different. They would suffer all kinds of discrimination and uneasy approaches from those who aren't familiar with their distinct looks. Which is exactly what happens in today's society towards people with not only Crouzon Syndrome, but people with all sorts of physical differences and disabilities. What we consider normal doesn't exist anywhere else but in our minds only.

"Growing up with a face that looks different, that is constantly being judged by. Everything was because of my face. And so, there was no permission, no room to be bad at something, to learn something. I always felt like I had to be better than everyone else just to be considered equal. Because of the way I looked, I always had to compensate."

From a place of accountability, we all share the responsibility of learning from each other's differences, of how to treat people equally in spite of their appearance. However, is it possible to also share the burden of living life without asking permission every time to walk into places without the unspoken obligation to explain why we look the way we look? If I enter a room filled with people and, somehow, they seem uncomfortable with my appearance, why is it always my job to explain my existence in order to make them less uncomfortable? Can it be the other way around? Can the people in the room have the responsibility and do the work of making me feel welcome and equal? After all, aren't we all different?

“You look at people and what you look like is what you are.", Ariel observes.

When we encounter something that doesn't look like what we have learned as “normal”, there is an urgency to categorize it, so it doesn't look as unfamiliar anymore. We need to connect right away, to fill the gap between the known and the unknown. Earlier in their lives, Ariel says that she and her sister were interviewed by the French edition of Marie Claire. What, at first, sounded like an incredible opportunity turned out to be an issue.

"When this article came out, there was a line in there that said that our faces resembled the work of Picasso."

The comparison with Picasso's asymmetrical face paintings landed painfully. Even though they didn't fully understand what that meant, they knew they didn't like it, Ariel recalls.

As kids, we haven't developed yet the emotional tools to understand what is going on. How was that for you?

The journalist wanted to meet with us, and for that interview, to associate it with something the readers would be able to relate to was understandable. It wasn't understandable at that time though, no. I was mad. And that's another thing that is not explored a lot.

We don't talk enough about mental health issues. We don't talk enough about the importance of holding space for all sorts of feelings. Being angry, or sad, or scared is all part of the same process: healing begins with acknowledgement. Ariel not only had to face her own experience, but also witnessed her twin sister go through the same surgeries and major changes.

How is your relationship with your twin sister?

It was really hard to watch someone you love, someone you feel like it's the other part of you especially when you are an identical twin, go through something like this was horrible. I think that was actually worse than experiencing it because there is nothing you can do. We had surgeries at the same time a lot, we would wake up from surgeries and ask about each other first thing. She was very supportive of me writing. We are very close."

As a child, Ariel recollects she couldn't develop a sense of self because her face was always changing.

"It was hard to connect to a face that was always changing. I lived in denial a lot. I think a big part of why the Picasso painting for example made me so upset was because it acknowledged something I really didn't want to acknowledge. I could talk about surgeries but, to talk about how I was fundamentally different from other people made me very upset because I was not ready to confront it. I did not understand it. Mental health care in general has come a long way since I was a little kid going through surgeries and having my face change. The mental and the emotional aspects were not really addressed."

Our body is our nest, we have to live in it. We must love it. It is the only house in which our mind will reside. Although mental health plays a crucial role when it comes to self-love and self-acceptance, we don't talk about it enough. The path to self-knowledge is also the path to healing.

"The more that I have learned, the more I stopped apologizing for who I am.", Ariel concludes.

Ariel just finished her novel— A Face for Picasso, a title her editor suggested, and the author embraced it. Her book will come out this November, but it is already available for pre-order. The book centers around two major surgeries that the twin sisters had the summer before seventh grade that changed their look a bit again.

Screen Shot 2021-04-25 at 8.20.27 PM.png

How did the idea to write A Face for Picasso come to life?

I knew that I wanted to write this book and I have been working on it since I was twelve. Writing it is the one thing that got me through life up until this point.

The entire process of creating art is art. Is it the role of art to provide as entertainment only or, is it the role of art to deliver the entire story behind someone's creation? When we see the artist's final product, a bridge presents itself. This bridge may connect us into the world of a detailed life that we, the audience, are not aware of yet. If we allow ourselves to learn the whole story behind a piece of art, we can actually cross the bridge from enjoying a piece of art to experiencing it.

"I wanted to make my story more palatable. Physical difference and disability are something that is not explored a lot and people are not comfortable with it. There is this pressure to, even when you are different, to seem as normal as possible still."

In a world predominantly normal (gigantic quotation marks in the air around the word normal), to find a community we can relate to is key. That is how we realize that, after all, we are not alone in this. A Face for Picasso is not only a compilation of Ariel's lifetime creative writing work, but also sheds light on one of the greatest truths in life: representation matters. The author recalls growing up not knowing that there were other people with the same condition as she and her sister. When she found community, she also found herself.

"The more I learned about other people's life stories and their experiences and met other people with other craniofacial conditions even, I found a community and an acceptance that I didn't know it was there. It made me sad that I had spent so many years and that other people spent so many years thinking that they are alone when they are not."

The legacy of a writer often reflects what they have acquired in life. A sense of belonging, relationships, challenges, answered and unanswered questions. Ariel brings to life A Face for Picasso as a result of her own journey of deep searching for something bigger than life. She would hope, during her creative writing process, that we would find something great in our own journeys, too.

"I learned a lot about myself. I feel like I couldn't rest until I was done with it. I have wanted to write this for so long and I have wanted for people, especially younger people with craniofacial conditions or with Crouzon Syndrome, to have a story that they could relate to, too. Hopefully in some ways. I hope other people's journeys are positive."

After going through all these experiences in life, who are you?

I'm still working through that a little. I have got to the terms of not being what I look like, I have always known that I am a person, not a face, and now I am trying to start to embrace that, and I hope that continues. I am passionate and outspoken, and I get angry, but I'm learning that it's ok to be angry. It's ok to get mad when things are wrong in the world, to get mad about injustice whether it is toward yourself or someone else. It is ok to say what you need and what you deserve and to know that you are a valuable person, and you deserve to take up space and if other people want to make you feel bad or want to shame you for something, that shame is not yours to carry."

What would you say to a younger person with Crouzon Syndrome?

There is nothing wrong with you. If other people want to make you feel bad or want to say that there is something wrong with you, that is not your problem. As hard as it is right now, you will come out of this.

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. During the entire interview, Ariel's eyes expressed kindness. The type of kindness that moves every soul into purpose. As a writer, it is quite wonderful to watch someone building a legacy for others with such devotion and generosity. Ariel's written work enables us to look within ourselves and search for answers and meaning. It teaches us that we must embrace the journey we are in and move forward. One page at a time.

Wendia Machado 1/25/21 Wendia Machado 1/25/21

Heart Series: Jelena Aleksich - Founder of The Confetti Project

Jelena Aleksich

2020 is finally over, but we are still picking up the pieces. We have learned to work remotely, but are still figuring out how to do it healthily. We have learned to compromise on deadlines and dreams, but are still longing the old days when we could come and go freely. We have learned how to live through a pandemic, but are still behind when it comes to overcoming it. It has been a year about loss, adaptation and survival and, among that, there's grief. So why don't we talk more often about it? To answer that and a few other questions, I talked to Jelena Aleksich, the founder of The Confetti Project— an initiative that portraits people doused in confetti (Yup! You heard it just right! Confetti!) as a result of exploring one of the biggest questions in life:

What do you celebrate?

Six years and over two hundred celebratory sessions later, Jelena has built a community of people who celebrate life among other things. "I'm trying to redefine what celebration means. We don't have to be deserving of celebration. We don't need to be waiting on a pile of confetti, or have a birthday, or a big milestone or we don't have to wait to watch someone we love die. We don't need to be awakened by tragedy.", she enlightens.

When The Confetti Project had to abruptly cease its in person sessions because of Covid, an immediate grief took place but, as after all torrential storms, a clear sky showed up along afterwards. "I already had some storms, so when this big one came, I knew a breakthrough would come from this breakdown if I were patient, kind and compassionate with myself. It completely made me realize what I've been doing with confetti. I am changing the way confetti is used. For being the worldwide symbol of celebration from thousands of years, that is why when we see confetti, we automatically connect it with celebration." Within a few months into the pandemic, Jelena has built an unimaginable bridge. She brought grief and celebration together while using confetti as a tool: "Confetti is the new healing modality. Grief and Celebration has become a subset of the Confetti Project.", she explains.

The project offers a safe space for grief and healing. "Holding space for everything that grief brings up is healing.", Jelena declares. To celebrate grief with confetti and community is her mission. She alerts, "Where it becomes dangerous is when you don't allow yourself to feel it." In a society that oversimplifies grief, it is essential to humanize it and demystify it in order to allow the process of healing to happen. "Grief is the most universal experience, the most universal truth.", Jelena says. Last December, the 19th, I participated in the workshop Grief As Celebration | Reflecting + Releasing 2020. My package with confetti arrived days before with a warm little note, confetti and instructions for the event.

How has the process with confetti been for you?

I have been working with confetti for many years and I have been holding space for other people. At the same time, it was a reciprocal experience. I was feeling the effects of healing.

And that was exactly how I felt in my own experience in my own Grief + Celebration process. "These little pieces of paper give you freedom to be able to express yourself.", Jelena says. It's like being a child again. We are freer when we are kids and we deal with grief in a different way. Perhaps we have more tools or less fear. In our adulthood, we are socially castrated in so many ways. The permission to make a mess with confetti can be a breakthrough in life. "We need a lot of permission to do things. Permission to make a mess. Permission to even celebrate challenging things.", she concludes.

How do you perceive this connection?

A lot of adults love to grasp onto illusions of control because there is so much that is uncertain. Our whole existence is rooted in uncertainty.

As the workshop progressed, that group of strangers began to share their experiences. One at a time, we gave space and held space for one another. Historically, we are taught to feel ashamed of our feelings, we are taught to only carefully outlet our emotions. However, once I witnessed my peers opening up their hearts, I felt compelled to do the same and a change happened. By sharing my experience, I rinsed off some of that unreasonable shame. By embracing my grief, I found out I wasn't alone in my pain. It is cathartic to realize how many things can be cured by being in community.

"We are all connected to our grief in one way or another."

How does it make you feel that now people are doing the confetti at home and they are a little more in charge of their own process with confetti?

I love it. I love that people can have their own experience at their own homes, I think that is beautiful. The model has shifted so much this year with not being able to meet in person, how much that impacts more accessibility. People don't have to live in NY to be able to do it.

What is the future of The Confetti Project?

The year of 2020 has been a turning point for it. As creatives, we envision futures that don't exist yet. We are the bridges to actualizing that for people to see. I'm always thinking about the future of this work. It is one of my life purposes. I truly believe I was meant to be the vessel through this specific message. I'll be getting a space in the future, a community and lifestyle space. First line of products called mental hygiene collection, which used confetti and journaling to have more mental health check-ins throughout your week or day. The Grief and Celebration Initiative will grow.

Jelena lost her father in a battle against cancer. For a whole year, as she watched him fight for his life, she brought The Confetti Project to life.

After six years of all that you've learned, what would you say to your dad now? If you had a chance to look him in the eye and say it, what would be the message?

I would just hug him and thank him for everything. I would thank him for teaching me what unconditional love is and for how to live life well, I would thank him for everything that I have become. I am everything that I am because of him.

Would you have to say for those who are grieving right now?

You are valid. Everything you're feeling is valid. If you feel alone, you would be surprised by how many people are feeling what you're feeling. We all feel the same things, maybe in different ways and in different times but, grief connects every single person. It is okay for you to feel what you're feeling. You are feeling something many people are afraid to feel. Reach out to your community. It is not that you are alone, you have been given this opportunity to go deeper within yourself and feel everything that is coming up.

When the workshop ended, we were all covered in confetti of all colors. It felt like a giant hug from life. A gentle reminder that beauty and fragility can coexist. "The confetti is a beautiful metaphor for it. Because it is so spontaneous, and it moves. When you use it, you can't control it. It is a reflection on life in itself. All you can do is keep moving forward and try to be as present as possible. It is a nice way to get out of your head and bring the energy in your body. And to be in the moment.", Jelena summarizes.

One of Jelena's most powerful statements that resonates with me is "All of the people that we have lost, they have given us that gift of being closer to our mortality." because it made me realize that to celebrate grief is an opportunity to reset life. For better or worse, the idea of mortality is what gives life meaning and a sense of purpose. Towards the end of our interview, she asks "How many times do you have something physical to represent all the stuff that is happening in your mind?". Almost never, I suggested. That's what confetti does. "It gives you an edge, it gives you that superpower of thinking about who you were and allowing for you to be present.", Jelena concludes.

When the workshop was over, I played some music. As the sound and the lyrics traversed the room, I thought of my friend who passed away four years ago. I thought of how much she liked that song and how much fun she would have had with confetti herself if she was here. As I gathered up the remaining confetti off the floor, I didn't bother to pursue the scattered ones presumably behind the couch or underneath the rug because that could be a memoryland for the residual effect of confetti. A few weeks from now, as I get ready for another important thing to cross off my routine to-do list, a piece of confetti may cross my day and completely shift my energy. It may remind me too that life is worth living not because it ends, but because it always begins somewhere.

All images are courtesy of Jelena. You can check out The Confetti Project here. :)